Trial begins in 1994 killing of Calif. millionaire

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. 
Trial began Monday for a former NFL player who is accused with his ex-lover of killing a wealthy Southern California businessman nearly 18 years ago.

In opening statements, Deputy District Attorney Matt Murphy told jurors that Eric Andrew Naposki was having an affair with the girlfriend of Orange County millionaire William McLaughlin for about a year before McLaughlin was gunned down in his Newport Beach home in 1994, the Orange County Register reported.

Naposki, a former New England Patriots and Indianapolis Colts linebacker, and Nanette Johnson Packard are charged with murder in of McLaughlin's death. Packard's trial is scheduled for later this year.

Prosecutors said Packard persuaded Naposki to shoot McLaughlin and stood to collect $1 million in life insurance from his death.

Naposki was virtually broke in 1994 and had just landed a job as a bouncer at a nightclub near McLaughlin's Balboa Coves home, Murphy said. Yet he was able to take expensive trips with Packard to Chicago, New York and Jamaica in the months before the killing.

Naposki also owned a 9 mm Beretta handgun, the same gun used to kill McLaughlin, Murphy said. The gun was never recovered and Naposki could not explain what happened to it, the Register reported.

Defense attorneys Gary Pohlson and Angelo G. MacDonald delayed their opening statements until after the conclusion of the prosecution evidence, but they have maintained that Naposki is innocent.

Naposki and Packard each face life in prison without the possibility of parole if convicted.